The Mesopotamian civilizations were some of the earliest to systematically
observe the movements of the Sun and planets in the sky. Because of the difficulty in
locating the sun against the map of the stars during the day, the Babylonians had two
methods by which they inferred its position in the zodiac. In the first method they noted
the phase of the Moon and its zodiacal position and from that inferred where the Sun
was located in the sky. Therefore, if the Moon were in its waxing quarter phase and
located in the sign of Virgo, one could deduce that the Sun was somewhere in the sign of
Gemini. In the other method, the Babylonians located the Sun by observing the con-
stellations rising and setting just before and after the Sun, when its light was dim enough
to be able to observe the star map. This second method was also popular amongst the
Egyptians who used a solar calendar and had mapped the sky into constellations. In con-
trast, the lunar Babylonian calendar allowed them to discover that 19 solar years were
roughly equal in length to 235 lunar months. This is known as the Metonic cycle, whose
19-year solar period is important in the timing of events in Hellenistic astrology.
In Sumerian the Sun was known as Utu and in Akkadian as Shamash, the
names of the two solar deities of Mesopotamia. However, according to Nick Campi-
on, the two words could mean either the visible planet or the hidden power within it,
THEASTROLOGYBOOK [631]
SunA seventeenth-century engraving of the Sun. Reproduced by permission of Fortean Picture
Library.